Mt. Massive: Staff Training and Preview
Mt. Massive: Staff Training and Preview
So after a few days off relaxing with my sister and ordering my Maid of Honor Dress for her wedding, I returned to the Yurt near Twin Lakes for staff training. Here I got to meet the rest of the staff which comprised of the Windom Crew and Hilary from the Adopt-a-Peak Program. The Windom Crew is working in a very remote area near Windom Peak in the San Juan Mountains and will be staying back there, even on most of their off days. It’s pretty neat actually, they have to take a narrow gage train to a stop in the middle of nowhere and then hike in 7 miles or so to their base camp. Unfortunately, that means that I won’t get to see Shawn, Kenzie, Frances and Ben to frequently as we are pretty spread apart.
Never the less, getting to know them a little bit was great and we engaged in a highly competitive game of Pict-o-nary. We also went on a trail “walk and talk” to point out trail structures and building do’s and don’ts. Over all, staff training was short. After the Windom Crew got on their way down to Durango, we did 2 more days of trail work/training with Joe, Drew, Hilary and I. Asa, a former CFI staff member also gave us some pointers as he went hiking while we were working.
After another weekend off, I went back to work on Monday, June 15th. I ran errands picking up various items at our storage sheds, picking up re-bar, bear wire, lids to our gravity filters and other such necessary objects. I managed to get almost everything to camp in 2 loads including my food, sleeping bag, some clothes and a book. I also spent about an hour and a half bailing water off our tarp as it had collected and sagged to the ground. It was so laden with water; I couldn’t lift it to dump it off so I resorted to a pan to get water off the tarp. I saved some of the water for boiling for dinner and hot chocolate and the rest was put back into the natural world to be absorbed, returned to the atmosphere and then dropped back to the earth as precipitation.
Greg and Joe made it to camp that night just as I was getting worried and the last bit of light was fading from the evening sky. I retired to my tent, my new home away from home.
Totals for the day include about 10.5 miles of hiking and 6 personal contacts on the mountain or in the parking lot. Glad to see some responsible people out enjoying the early season on the mountain.
Tuesday the 16th was to be a preview day with Loretta but car trouble pushed her arrival back so Greg, Joe and I went for a walk up the mountain to get to know it before we hiked it with Loretta. We also checked out some the restoration work that one of my camp groups did last year. So far the transplants that the 2008 Overland Summers group did for us are looking great. We returned to camp, fixed the tarp, Loretta arrived and we made an excellent Curry dinner. The four of us chatted late into the evening by trail crew standards, about 9:45 pm.
Wednesday I was primed for a butt whooping. We were hiking with Loretta. Loretta is a kind hearted, experienced outdoors woman. She is in charge of managing, contracting and monitoring the working going on the all of the 14,000 foot peaks in the state, amongst other things. She hikes frequently, she lives at elevation and she says she is out of shape. She killed me in hiking today. I keep reminding myself that I am built for hiking long distances a bit slower, but it barely makes me feel better about the shellacking I took today. She did hunker down for a bit and let Greg and I catch up (Joe keep up with her very well) so we could preview together, the reroute that Joe and I will be constructing with the help of our volunteers and the Rocky Mountain Youth Corps.
We hiked up to about 13,500 feet to the saddle before the ridgeline but, covered in snow, the ridgeline was impossible to preview so we returned back to camp, deciding that we’ll have to preview that section later, when we can see the trail.
Loretta and Greg hiked out the night when we got back to camp.
The next two days were spent in preparation for upcoming groups, getting an idea of what we want the groups to do, getting an idea of how long it will take to hike to the work site with the groups, etc. We also did some willow transplants, dismantled a fire ring, filled in old holes left by those who did restoration before us but didn’t fill in their holes from transplants, cached emergency gear and shuttled tools.
We hiked down from camp with the realization that we have a lot of work to do this summer to fulfill the contract that CFI has with the Forest Service. We are going to have to ask a lot of our groups and push them hard. Joe and I are going to have to be focused and prepared, forceful but fair, realistic but setting loft standards and goals. It will be an interesting balancing act and I hope we don’t disappoint.
